I recently watched “Promised Land”. For those who are unaware of it, it was released in 2012 and starred Matt Damon, Hal Holbrook, Frances McDormand, and John Krasinski. It was really good. There were some really Oscar worthy performances in it:

Matt Damon: He was really good and wowed me in this one.Hal Holbrook: How this man was not nominated is beyond me. John Krasinski: Yes Jim from “The Office” really was that good.

What does everyone else think or am I the only one that really enjoyed this movie?

It was a solid flick, but since the reviews and buzz wasn’t stellar, it didn’t get any kind of push and got lost in the holiday shuffle. It probably should have been released in early fall to get some more recognition.The script was very good as was Frances McDormand, and Matt Damon gave another great performance. I wouldn’t have put any of them in the top 5 in their respective categories, so that’s why it flew under the radar.

The release date was the same week at Django Unchanged and Les Miserables. The problem was the film, not the playdate, which would have been perfect had it been a better film. It was screen extensively from mid-November on last year, as were all of the films that came out after the GG & SAG nominations and early awards groups. The film simply didn’t impress people.

I agree that it is enjoyable and has some good elements. It just felt to me like a cardboard polemic and very much by the numbers than particularly creative.

The fact is that in crowded fields of five nominations apiece for the majority of the categories, some great performances will be snubbed come nomination morning. Promised Land was a smaller film, one I never saw in fact, mostly because I avoided it due to the critical backlash.

Maybe if you had your own mock awards, you would give Damon and Holbrook nominations for Lead and Sup. Actor, but they just didn’t have what it took to compete against Day-Lewis, Phoenix, Jackman, or Washington (or De Niro, Hoffman, Jones or Waltz, depending on the category).

The fact is that in crowded fields of five nominations apiece for the majority of the categories, some great performances will be snubbed come nomination morning. Promised Land was a smaller film, one I never saw in fact, mostly because I avoided it due to the critical backlash.

Maybe if you had your own mock awards, you would give Damon and Holbrook nominations for Lead and Sup. Actor, but they just didn’t have what it took to compete against Day-Lewis, Phoenix, Jackman, or Washington (or De Niro, Hoffman, Jones or Waltz, depending on the category).

I’m not going to do any mock awards (looks pretty time consuming) lol. Maybe Damon didn’t really have a shot at a nomination (the nominees were pretty tough to beat and I think DDL had pretty been the favorite and deservadly so) but Holbrook did some incredible work in that movie. Between that performance and Into the Wild, he really would have been a deserving nominee in my opinion.

Oh, I thought you were going to talk about Polish classic from 1974 (even if it was nominated for FL). Check it out if you have a possibility, it’s very worth it! I will have to see this one from 2012.

Because it got released on the tail end of 2012, it was a solid flick without much originality about it. But Matt Damon always holds the screen pretty well, and the script never lags. But you just reach the end and you realize you got one very good scene (the “f*** you money” scene) and that was it. Two days later you forget you even watched it.

However, I remember Promised Land vividly because I watched it the day Roger Ebert died. I was watching it as news started trickling in (I only saw them a few hours later). I was devastated when I heard the news. So Promised Land will often pop up in my memory whenever I think of Ebert (which I do, a lot).